PostedMay 19, 2012 7:21 pmLast edited by LadyBorderlinex on May 19, 2012 8:07 pm. Edited 1 time in total

Bystander Intervention

And what you can do if you see bullying/harassment in game

Imagine someone you love is playing the game with you. A younger brother, sister, friend, girlfriend, spouse, child – imagine the one person who means the world to you is online and someone is bullying them. On top of PKing them and preventing them from playing the game, they are berating them in all chat. Insulting their individual self in such an aggressive manor that you wish you could step in. There is one problem with this: You can’t. And as you watch this verbal assault continue and you see your loved one turn away from the game, you realize there are others there who can do something but chose not to. How does that make you feel?

I’m sure you’ve all been at some place or another where you’ve seen cyber bullying or harassment occur in the game. Many people do what is acceptable and turn an eye to it and continue with their life. I will tell you that it is normal to not want to get involved and have done so myself. Common belief defends this thought process, even outside the game.

Cyber bullying and harassment occur in the game in a multitude of ways. I will tell you this right now open PVP is not cyber-bullying in itself, same as KS’ing is not harassment but is a tool in harassment. Cyber-bullying is a form of power based personal violence. Power based personal violence is a very broad and general term but is a phenomenon that plagues both in game and out of it. Basically, it means any instance where one uses power over another. This power can be used physically, verbally, emotionally, and financially. In our context, verbal and emotional are the most applicable because they are just two ways one can execute power over another through the mechanics of our game. Another key term is the personal violence part.

Verbal violence is best described as:

...the type of violence which is expressed in spoken words or oral speech. Words which carries the negative and evil energies of violence. To insult someone through spoken words, to speak evil, to gossip, or to spread propaganda against someone. Verbal violence can also be expressed via the spoken words of bad language (cursing and vulgar language).
Source: http://d4nations.com/webpubl/articles/what-is-verbal-violence.html

Emotional Violence is best described as:

…Is any behavior that is designed to control and subjugate another human being through the use of fear, humiliation, and verbal or physical assaults. Emotional abuse falls into three main categories: aggressing, denying and minimizing.
Source: http://www.counselingcenter.illinois.edu/?page_id=168

These two forms of violence take place in our game and games similar to ours whether we want to recognize it or not. The question is, what can we do about it? When I saw we, I mean the people who see this happen and turn an eye to it and are tired of doing that; the people who are sick of seeing it happen; and the people who want to play the game for what it is and enjoy their stay in our virtual world.

Bystander intervention is a concept that has been studied within the real world in instances of bullying, sexual violence, stalking and other forms of personal based violence. In short, bystander intervention involves the people who observe the behavior do something to stop it. Bystander intervention is a type of conflict resolution that is empirically researched in many arenas, one of them recently being with virtual works like ours. Kulovitz and Mabry researched and published their findings on MMO player’s perceptions on cyberbullying and some factors that lead to cyber bullying. What they found was that those who have been victims in the past are more likely to intervene as an active bystander. Another finding in Kulovitz and Mabry’s study was that individuals who invested a lot of time in their game and the internet were found to execute more aggression and engage in cyberbullying.
Kimberly L. Kulovitz, Edward A. Mabry (2012), Chapter 7 Cyberbullying: Perceptions of Bullies and Victims, in Laura A. Wankel, Charles Wankel (ed.)Misbehavior Online in Higher Education (Cutting-edge Technologies in Higher Education, Volume 5), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, pp.105-126

Where does bystander intervention play a role in cyber bullying and, most importantly, Last Chaos?In instances of bullying, harassment or any power based personal violence I am hoping that everyone who reads this decides to do something. It’s as simple as that. What comes next is the difficult part.

How to intervene as a bystander is something I learned in real world settings. Green Dot is a program that treats power based personal violence as a social disease. Every instance of violence would be considered a red dot but every intervention is treated as a green dot. The goal is to rid the world of these red dots with green dots. The way Green Dot teaches their participants to be active bystanders is through the three D’s. Distract, Direct and Delegate. The good thing about knowing the three techniques is that it equips you with unique tools to intervene is unique situations. There will never be a blanket answer to how to approach power based personal violence and not everyone will be able to intervene in the same way.

Distract: What is important about distract is that it takes the aggressor’s mind away from their target. That few seconds of distraction is more than enough to lower aggression and pulls the attention onto you in a different way. Ways to distract include starting a conversation, showing the person something on youtube, PKing the person, asking the person to join you somewhere else – any way to approach the aggressor and pull their attention, even if momentarily. While online, this might seem difficult. If you can do it, it might be just what is needed to calm things down.

Direct: Approaching the situation head on is another way to become an active bystander. Private messaging or whispering an aggressor and letting them know it is not okay. Any way to show the aggressor that their actions are not acceptable and not tolerated is ideal. I suggest exercising caution with this approach because it might not be acceptable for all situations. While staying quiet is never okay, speaking up should be done with your integrity intact.

Delegate: To delegate the situation would involve getting someone else involved. This could be a Game Sage, a Game Master or even a friend of the aggressor who you think could help diffuse the situation. If you know someone close to the aggressor is online, then explaining to them what is going on and if they could talk to their friend could be a way to intervene. If you do not know of such person, finding a Game Sage or Game Master would be a good next step. Bug-A-Sage is a feature many game sages have on their profile and is a direct line to many on the Last Chaos team. Explaining what is happening and that you believe this is a case of cyberbullying that really needs some intervention. Chances are that you will find someone online through Bug-A-Sage or requesting to PM a Game Sage through the shoutbox. From there, the Game Sage can intervene or possibly ask for help from anyone higher. Nevertheless, delegating the task to someone else is a way to become an active bystander.

With these three approaches, anyone can intervene in an instance of bullying, harassment or anything that simply feels wrong at the pit of your stomach. The most important thing to do is make a commitment to not ignore it anymore. On top of everything, report what you see, even if nothing comes from it. If it is one instance of someone losing themselves in a video game or a pattern of offensive behavior, it’s no one’s call to make but the GM’s. Taking screenshots and submitting them through Contact Us. Report Behavior is there, but situations like this are not forum appropriate. Since this kind of report is personal in nature, flames and arguments follow and avoiding that is appropriate.

Another thing to be mindful of is to not feed the flames and the arguments. As awesome as it is to turn around and really give someone a piece of your mind, it has to potential to backfire and drag you into the center. It will be hard for the GM’s to fairly decide when looking at screenshots and a lot of what they see is a full circle of cursing, name calling and overall bad behavior. It is best to try what you can and leave it at that.

I hope this helps you when playing the game. For more information, please read up on the following links and remember to always screenshot and submit through Contact Us. Let the GM’s decide what to do from there, don’t make the decision for them by refusing to send in screenshots. One may never know what has previously sent in or what may be sent in sometime in the future.

Code:

Prejudice, Discrimination, and Harassment is NOT OK
http://www.aeriagames.com/forums/en/viewtopic.php?t=1571073

Last Chaos Fair Play Rules
http://lastchaos.aeriagames.com/policy/rules

good point Lady B

....

Yes there should be no bullies .. not here ..not in the real world... But that's not how either of those places actually work.. we as a human culture have been actively trying to stop bullies in schools and in the work place.. we have made it politically uncomfortable to use word that have been labeled "wrong" AGE has even socially engineered our shout box to change Brilliant to brilliant .. and yes thats good .. to a point...

When i first started playing LC... i got bullied a little .. i got PKed again and again buy the same people.. it was frustrating ... SO I LEVELED..

i remember sneaking up to ladyVixen on the spawn pad to see her armor afraid she might notice me.. and hunt me down .. but that new 77 armor was so darn cool..

I was taught buy my guardian to leave any area VENDETTA came in to .. .. lol she immediately told me to drop all my gold and run.. then maybe they would not kill me..

Then a new server came out .. a new chance to really make a place for my self on the game... and i rallied my friends and we went... we DOMINATED the leveling competition.. and then one day a good friend of mine came to me with an offer i could not refuse... To Be VENDETTA... and i tossed and turned .. i knew what that meant.. i knew it would change every thing.. and as the last few remember .. we where glorious..

no one dared bully us .. anything people said in game had consequences .. that factor i love the most about lc.. someone talked trash about you .... the could and where pked... again and again if they where on pots.. there was a price to be paid for trash talking..

But AGE took away the ap pots that broke when you died.. they took away the merac castle guild owners getting half the pet rez fee...

they took away the -experience loss if you died red..

but don't let these buttered edges fool you ..

THIS is a PVP game based on gang violence and supremacy .. if you think its anything else your fooling your self.. its what makes the game great.. trash talk and rivalry is what fuels us.. take that away .. and there is little left..

While i agree on most part of Lady Borderlines initial post i am afraid there is one point that´s not really ok for me.
The so called researches of people who never have been emotionally involved in game experience are mostly worthless, as i have found quite too often.
While it may be good scientific behaviour never to get emotionally involved with the subject studied, this leads to some severe misunderstandings in topics like these, where the emotional part plays a major role that simply cannot be correctly understood by outsiders.

Another point i want to counter: LC is no "real" PvP game, just a grinder with pk options.
The aspect of "versus" in a onehit-game with totally unbalanced classes, hidden statuscaps and badly designed skills can be considered non existant.
There were rumours of some redesign of this oneclick"fight"-System but i do not believe in that anymore.

The corrective mechanisms, rewards for blue, punishments for red names have been removed shortsightedly. Of course there were always people whose last and only purpose in this game was lowkilling so they ran around with cursed armor, minus EXP and no SP or other things to lose whatsoever. Trying to intervene with such players running around is useless.
Still the deletion of ingame behavioral consequences was not a good idea and gave dedicated bullies more freeedom of methods.

As it seems to me, players intervention is the only effective defense against bullies although it may not work everywhere, regardless of dot colors.
Even calling out for GS help may take too long, considering the amount of time necessary to explain a situation that keeps escalating while the explanation takes place, it will.
So in short: get involved and try everything you can but do not expect to succeed every time. Even getting involved has its limitations.

Sadly, modifications to LC making it a soloplayergame with no rewards for good behaviour and no punishments for bad behaviour will not help players to find a good way of playing.
Additionally, the more socially oriented classes are degraded too often to mere parasites by this games mechanics. Anyone really needs(!) a cleric out of MC ? Anyone still needs witches at bossfights?
Supportclasses and rewarding grpplay may not make a fast buck but give the game a social basis for longterm addiction and spending.
There are lots of posts showing that the social aspect of the games keeps players here, so this aspect is the life and base of this game.
This base is clearly sabotaged and destroyed, encouraging a non social gameplay style which will do longterm damage and lead to financial losses.
So my fear is that the game itself will attract the sort of players that do not care for others anymore, reducing the amount of helpers over time.
Locked and loaded, shoot yourself in the foot, with a minigun, until the barrels are white hot....
And then make a fuss how this could only happen....

Anyone there to translate this into management speech and forward it ?